"Abstraction
in Photography"
Von Lintel Gallery
555 W 25th Street, New York
February 6 - March 22 2003
www.vonlintel.com
By AMBER
FOGEL
Andres Serrano Bloodscape
V 1989
Cibachrome, Silicone, Plexiglas, wood frame, ed. 3/4, 40 c 60 inches
this and other images courtesy Von Lintel Gallery, New York
I would venture
to guess that your average person regards photography as the instant
capture of reality simply because real places and things are often photographed,
and because the resulting image is documentary in nature. But the document
is not necessarily real. Once the picture is taken, time moves on, thereby
making what was real the past and the now-the real real-something else
entirely. Thus, photography can be described not as the capture of reality,
but rather, as an abstraction of time and place. What may have been
real now only exists on paper in the swirl of chemicals and fixatives
that hold it in place.
What then of the
photographic image that is in itself abstract? What if the abstract
real (as I have just defined it) is really abstract? Does our focus
(no pun intended) shift from the recognizable, indexical form, to composition,
tone, line and the intent of the artist? More than likely. But what
if the photographer gives us both? What if the artist presents a real,
recognizable form in an abstract presentation? The results are much
more complex than in abstract painting because the eye is conditioned
to read photographs by their surface, to take it for what it is, and
therefore not question more than what the eye can see.
These are the questions
and assumptions I had in mind as I wandered through "Abstraction
in Photography" at the Von Lintel Gallery. Using the works of sixteen
artists, the show was subtly divided into three sections deemed as "general
paths to abstraction." The front gallery was dedicated to photographs
that captured recognizable subject matter in an unusual way. A good
example is Andres Serrano's Bloodscape V (1989). The slick, plastic
red surface is actually a Cibachrome image of a pool of blood, taken
close up so that it is abstracted into not only a rich study of line,
but also a heavy viscous wave of damned if I know what.
The middle gallery
is given over to non-objective abstract photographs that derive their
imagery from a non-recognizable subject. Roland Fischer's Lucas Ave.
L. A. (2002) from far away looks like small gray and black squares generously
spaced in series across a large white surface. Grays fade into strips
of black at the bottom of each rectangle, the rectangles dot the surface
in a grid. Up close, the pattern starts to make more sense, and it is
obvious that this is a wall somewhere. The high-key white of the wall
surface contrasts sharply with the shadows of the rectangular holes,
giving the image a sunny feel. The serial pattern of the squares conjures
up notions of the digital, blinking cursors on a computer screen. This
brings it into the present, but combined with the twelve-part Sean Scully
piece Art Horizon III (2002) on the adjacent wall, Fischer's work calls
to mind the seriality and cleanliness of minimalist abstraction.
In the final gallery,
we are offered works that eliminate the use of the camera altogether.
Winfred Evers dominates here with Master Altar and Moving Still, both
from 1998. These gelatin silver prints have gelatinous, biomorphic shapes
created by merely manipulating the surface of the paper. Like jello
that has been wiggled, the images move by their own sinuousness, their
black and white shadows creating contrasts that evoke the architecture
of roller coasters. Very classy, and very fun.
2.
Vik Muniz's After
Yves Klein (From Pictures of Color) by far outpaces all the other images
in its double capacity to capture both the abstract real and real abstraction.
For that reason, I will dwell on this remarkable image in some depth.
Vik Muniz After
Yves Klein (From Pictures of Color) 2001
Cibachrome, ed 6/10, 60 x 48 inches
By way of Klein,
Muniz calls authenticity to task and in different ways projects a very
mindful artificiality with a slight twinge of dishonesty. This Cibachrome
image of little blue Pantone squares is in reference to Klein's own
ultramarine blue-I.K. B. or International Klein Blue. Klein used the
blue to connote the boundlessness of space and the spirituality space
evoked. The blue's powdery texture (created with the use of a special
binder) expanded its optical qualities. Klein painted his monochromatic
blue canvases with a roller-just as one would apply your run-of-the-mill
house paint-a nod to the commodity culture burgeoning the 1950s and
its repetitive nature, which in turn, became a reference to both authorial
presence (the hand of the artist) and the commercial nature of that
which could be readily reproduced.
By using the medium
of photography, Muniz draws attention to its optical qualities, namely,
the idea that what is represented in a photograph is also an optical
illusion-what you see is not real, although it appears so. Is it really
monochromatic? The squares all look to be of the same hue, but if one
reads the actual names of the colors, it is obvious that they are not
identical. Reflex Blue U is not the same as Blue 072 U. Again we're
dealing with an optical illusion: the abstraction (or refraction) of
light as it bounces off the surface of the squares, their perceived
color actually a mixture of the colors Muniz lays out for us at the
bottom of the image: Process Cyan U, Process Magenta U, Process Yellow
U, etc.
Muniz's photograph
can also be interpreted as a play on Klein's Yves Peintures an illustrated
booklet from 1954 wherein the plates were not photographs of paintings,
but sheets of commercially inked paper. In his homage to Klein, Muniz
gives us a photographic reproduction of commercially inked sheets (again
their repetition emphasizing their function as a commodity). Muniz's
presentation twice removes the viewer from the real thing. It is the
abstract real (blue photographed) in an real abstraction (a photograph
of a reproduction of blue).
Muniz's image illustrates
concisely what the exhibition as a whole was designed to prove: it documents
the fact that distance between reality and abstraction is in fact, very
minute.
